Sunday, 16 September 2007

This is interesting. I've previously been sceptical of the whole "Bombs in the Towers" thing. It seems like one of the more far-fetched elements of the 9/11 Conspiracy theories. But the Larry Silverstein "Pull it" quote was intriguing, as is this new claim, of a man who said he heard a countdown before Building 7 came down, implying that it was a deliberate demolition rather than an accidental collapse.

Interesting nugget of information from this article in the Washington Post today :

In Israel, for example, attacks by Palestinian terrorist groups bent on sabotaging peace talks are more frequent before elections when left-wing governments hold power, in hopes of pushing Israeli voters in a more hawkish direction, according to research by Claude Berrebi of the Rand Corporation and Esteban F. Klor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Of course, there's another possible interpretation of that data : that it's not the Palestinian terrorist groups who're carrying out the attacks, but elements of the Israeli right-wing.

The author of the article, Alan Krueger, also does his best to promote, not debunk, a modern myth of his own : that the Madrid bombings inspired the cowardly Spanish people to withdraw their support for the staunch conservative government of Jose Maria Aznar and vote instead for the spineless socialist Zapatero who helped the terrorists win by withdrawing all Spanish troops from Iraq. In reality, it was the government's handling of the aftermath of the bombing, not the bombing itself, that affected the pattern of voting.

When the Aznar government implied that the bombing was the work of ETA, not of Islamic terrorists, the people of Spain were sophisticated enough to detect a right-wing blowhard trying to make political capital out of his own incompetence. It's just a pity that the people of the United States weren't similarly sophisticated; and given the dumbed-down interpretations of events being peddled by the likes of Krueger in the Washington Post, they're not likely to become so anytime soon.

Wednesday, 12 September 2007

After Robert Fisk, comes Peter Tatchell. More and more UK-based intellectuals are jumping on the Chucky Sheen bandwagon and saying or hinting that 9/11 was an inside job. Of course, as they do it, they vigorously protest that they are not conspiracy theorists but ... Really. Do you think we conspiracy theorists were always conspiracy theorists? Well, we were'nt, but ...

Yes. Now I wear the Tinfoil proudly, but that wasn't always the case. A few years ago I wouldn't have considered myself a conspiracy theorist. But this Bush administration is just so sick and so sinister that vast numbers of new people have joined the ranks of the conspiracy theorists. We're now seeing totally mainstream guys talking or hinting about "false-flag operations". Look at Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's former National Security adviser,heretalking to the Senate Foreign Relations committee, warning of the Bushies using a new terrorist act on American soil as an excuse to attack Iran by "blaming it on the Iranians".

Or Michael Meacher, the government minister in the UK, who came out and said, or rather intimated, that 9/11 was an inside job; Paul Craig Roberts, a minister in the Reagan government; or Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst (lol).

The Bushies are like something out of a dystopian sci-fi novel. No one thought anything this sinister could emerge in the Western world again. But it has. And now half the world is wearing tinfoil as a result. What's interesting, though, is that once you start wearing tinfoil, it's not just the Bushies who look different. No. You have to re-interpret all of previous history too. Nothing is the same any more.

Tuesday, 11 September 2007

The New York Times has an interesting article today on the Don Siegelman case. This is the case that illustrates why the Repugs were so keen on getting their own placemen into the US Attorney slots : so they could use the law as a weapon against their political opponents.

Siegelman was stitched up, convicted of bribery in a nothing case where the exchange of favours was routine and unremarkable, something seen every day at all political levels throughout America. He derived no personal profit from his supposed bribe. The pressure was coming from the White House to put him behind bars. What the NY Times article doesn't cover, probably because it's too tinfoil-hatty, was the real reason for the drive to incarcerate Siegelman : that he was threatening to kick up a fuss about stolen elections.

The short version is that the 2002 Governor's election in Alabama, where Siegelman was the incumbent, was extremely close. The two leading candidates were separated by only a few thousand votes, with Siegelman narrowly ahead. Then the Repugnicans went into action. A special midnight recount was held with a laptop-wielding repug operative lending a helping hand and, whaddya know, suddenly a few thousand more votes appeared for Siegelman's opponent, who was now declared the winner. Siegelman demanded a recount and was denied it by a Bush appointee. He conceded defeat but wouldn't shut up about how the election had been stolen from him. So he had to be taken out.